History Series / MissionImpossible

** In "Old Man Out", Cardinal Vossek is based on Cardinal József Mindszenty, the leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary from 1945 to 1973. Imprisoned during the war by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party for his opposition to fascism, he then stood up to communism with the result he was arrested on trumped-up charges of treason, beaten until he signed an absurd confession and then sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1949 ShowTrial. He was released during the short-lived 1956 Hungarian Revolution and when the Soviet Union invaded, sought asylum in the US Embassy in Budapest. He would remain there for the next 15 years (so during the time this episode was made in 1966), unable to leave the grounds without being arrested. He would be allowed to leave Hungary in 1971 after a deal between the Vatican and Hungary, dying in exile in Vienna in 1975.

The show won ten UsefulNotes/{{Emmy|Award}}s (Two Outstanding Drama awards, one Outstanding Writing in a Drama award, ''three'' Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Drama awards for Barbara Bain, one Outstanding in Art Direction and Scenic Design award, one Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing award, one Outstanding Achievement in Makeup award, and one Individual Achievement in Film and Sound Editing award, plus ''thirty-eight'' other nominations in various categories), three UsefulNotes/{{Golden Globe|Award}}s (One Best Drama, and one Best Actor each for Peter Graves and Martin Landau) and one Edgar (One Best Episode).

There was a two-season ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]]''-style continuation of the original series filmed in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} in the [[TheEighties 1980s]]; Peter Graves returned as Jim Phelps, mentoring an all-new team (including Barney Collier's son, Grant, played by Greg Morris's real son, Creator/PhilMorris); originally conceived as a straight-out remake in order to fill a hole in Creator/{{ABC}}'s schedule created by a [[UsefulNotes/TVStrikes Hollywood writer's strike]], the series ended up being a continuation of the original (though the strike still forced them to remake a couple of original series episodes), while Greg Morris and Lynda Day George made guest appearances as their original characters. The [[VideoGame/MissionImpossible1990 NES game]] and [[VideoGame/MissionImpossible1991 DOS game]] developed and/or published by Creator/{{Konami}} are based on this revival series.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: In "Lover's Knot," the BigBad lives outside UsefulNotes/{{London}}. Fair enough, except that there are [[TheMountainsOfIllinois mountains in the background]] - so either he lives ''way'' outside London (like, UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} or Yorkshire outside) or...

* PopCulturePunEpisodeTitle: The title of "A Spool There Was" is a double reference. It's taken from the famous [[UsefulNotes/TheSilentAgeOfHollywood silent movie]] ''Film/AFoolThereWas'', which in turn is a quote from the Creator/RudyardKipling poem "The Vampire".

There was a two-season ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]]''-style continuation of the original series filmed in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} in the [[TheEighties 1980s]]; Peter Graves returned as Jim Phelps, mentoring an all-new team (including Barney Collier's son, Grant, played by Greg Morris's real son, Creator/PhilMorris); originally conceived as a straight-out remake in order to fill a hole in Creator/{{ABC}}'s schedule created by a [[UsefulNotes/TVStrikes Hollywood writer's strike]], the series ended up being a continuation of the original (though the strike still forced them to remake a couple of original series episodes), while Greg Morris and Lynda Day George made guest appearances as their original characters. The [[VideoGame/MissionImpossible1990 NES game]] and [[VideoGame/MissionImpossibleDOS DOS game]] developed and/or published by Creator/{{Konami}} are based on this revival series.

* ActionizedAdaptation: Not unreasonably, the NES game wasn't about an elaborate sting operation, but is instead an action game with some stealth and puzzle elements.